Monday, February 19, 2007
Saturday, November 25, 2006
Gay Marriage Ban Rejected in Arizona
In a triple setback for conservatives, South Dakotans rejected a law that would have banned virtually all abortions, Arizona became the first state to defeat an amendment to ban gay marriage and Missouri approved a measure backing stem cell research.
Nationwide, a total of 205 measures were on the ballots in 37 states Tuesday, but none had riveted political activists across the country like the South Dakota measure. Passed overwhelmingly by the legislature earlier this year, it would have been the toughest abortion law in the nation, allowing the procedure only to save a pregnant woman's life.
Lawmakers had hoped the ban would be challenged in court, provoking litigation that might eventually lead to a U.S. Supreme Court reversal of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.
Jan Nicolay, a leader of the state's anti-ban campaign, said voters viewed the measure - which lost by a 55-45 margin - as too intrusive.
"We believe South Dakotans can make these decisions themselves," she said. "They don't have to have somebody telling them what that decision needs to be."
Arizona broke a strong national trend by refusing to change its constitution to define marriage as a one-man, one-woman institution. The measure also would have forbid civil unions and domestic partnerships.
Eight states voted on amendments to ban gay marriage: Colorado, Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin approved them. Similar amendments have passed previously in all 20 states to consider them.
"What we're seeing is that fear-mongering around same-sex marriage is fizzling out," said Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. He noted that the bans that succeeded won by much narrower margins, on average, than in the past.
Conservatives had hoped the same-sex marriage bans might increase turnout for Republicans, though the GOP had a rough night. Democrats had looked for a boost from low-income voters turning out on behalf of measures to raise the state minimum wage in six states. The wage hikes passed in Arizona, Colorado. Missouri, Montana, Ohio and Nevada.
The Missouri stem cell measure passed by a narrow margin. It had become a key factor in the state's crucial Senate race, won by Democratic challenger Claire McCaskill, who supported it, over incumbent Republican Jim Talent, who opposed it.
Celebrities also had plunged into the campaign: actor Michael J. Fox, suffering from Parkinson's disease, endorsed the amendment, while several sports stars spoke against it.
In Michigan, voters took a swipe at affirmative action, deciding that race and gender should not be factors in deciding who gets into public universities or who gets hired for government work.
Arizona voters faced the most ballot measures - 19. They approved four that arose out of frustration over the influx of illegal immigrants: One measure makes English the state's official language, while another expands the list of government benefits denied to illegal immigrants.
Voters weren't keen about another, more quirky Arizona measure: They defeated a proposal that would have awarded $1 million to a randomly selected voter in each general election.
In Ohio and Arizona, anti-smoking activists won showdowns with R.J. Reynolds Tobacco. Voters in each state approved a tough ban on smoking in public places and rejected rival, Reynolds-backed measures that would have exempted bars. Voters in Arizona and South Dakota approved increases in tobacco taxes, while the proposal was rejected in Missouri.
Nevada and Colorado voters rejected measures that would have legalized possession of up to an ounce of marijuana by anyone 21 and older. South Dakotans voted down a proposal that would have allowed marijuana use for some medical purposes. A winning measure in Rhode Island will restore voting rights to felons on probation and parole.
Elsewhere, land use was a hot issue, part of a backlash against a 2005 Supreme Court ruling allowing the city of New London, Conn., to buy up homes to make way for a private commercial development.
Nine states approved eminent-domain measures barring the government from taking private property for a private use. Arizona's winning measure went a step further, requiring state and local authorities to compensate property owners if land-use regulations lowered the value of their property: Idaho rejected a similar measure.
South Dakota voters defeated a measure that would have made their state the first to strip immunity from judges, exposing them to the possibility of lawsuits. In Maine, Nebraska and Oregon, voters defeated measures that would cap increases in state spending.
Pennsylvania voters gave the state the go-ahead to borrow $20 million so that nearly 33,000 veterans in the state who participated in the Persian Gulf War could collect one-time payments up to $525.
Nationwide, a total of 205 measures were on the ballots in 37 states Tuesday, but none had riveted political activists across the country like the South Dakota measure. Passed overwhelmingly by the legislature earlier this year, it would have been the toughest abortion law in the nation, allowing the procedure only to save a pregnant woman's life.
Lawmakers had hoped the ban would be challenged in court, provoking litigation that might eventually lead to a U.S. Supreme Court reversal of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.
Jan Nicolay, a leader of the state's anti-ban campaign, said voters viewed the measure - which lost by a 55-45 margin - as too intrusive.
"We believe South Dakotans can make these decisions themselves," she said. "They don't have to have somebody telling them what that decision needs to be."
Arizona broke a strong national trend by refusing to change its constitution to define marriage as a one-man, one-woman institution. The measure also would have forbid civil unions and domestic partnerships.
Eight states voted on amendments to ban gay marriage: Colorado, Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin approved them. Similar amendments have passed previously in all 20 states to consider them.
"What we're seeing is that fear-mongering around same-sex marriage is fizzling out," said Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. He noted that the bans that succeeded won by much narrower margins, on average, than in the past.
Conservatives had hoped the same-sex marriage bans might increase turnout for Republicans, though the GOP had a rough night. Democrats had looked for a boost from low-income voters turning out on behalf of measures to raise the state minimum wage in six states. The wage hikes passed in Arizona, Colorado. Missouri, Montana, Ohio and Nevada.
The Missouri stem cell measure passed by a narrow margin. It had become a key factor in the state's crucial Senate race, won by Democratic challenger Claire McCaskill, who supported it, over incumbent Republican Jim Talent, who opposed it.
Celebrities also had plunged into the campaign: actor Michael J. Fox, suffering from Parkinson's disease, endorsed the amendment, while several sports stars spoke against it.
In Michigan, voters took a swipe at affirmative action, deciding that race and gender should not be factors in deciding who gets into public universities or who gets hired for government work.
Arizona voters faced the most ballot measures - 19. They approved four that arose out of frustration over the influx of illegal immigrants: One measure makes English the state's official language, while another expands the list of government benefits denied to illegal immigrants.
Voters weren't keen about another, more quirky Arizona measure: They defeated a proposal that would have awarded $1 million to a randomly selected voter in each general election.
In Ohio and Arizona, anti-smoking activists won showdowns with R.J. Reynolds Tobacco. Voters in each state approved a tough ban on smoking in public places and rejected rival, Reynolds-backed measures that would have exempted bars. Voters in Arizona and South Dakota approved increases in tobacco taxes, while the proposal was rejected in Missouri.
Nevada and Colorado voters rejected measures that would have legalized possession of up to an ounce of marijuana by anyone 21 and older. South Dakotans voted down a proposal that would have allowed marijuana use for some medical purposes. A winning measure in Rhode Island will restore voting rights to felons on probation and parole.
Elsewhere, land use was a hot issue, part of a backlash against a 2005 Supreme Court ruling allowing the city of New London, Conn., to buy up homes to make way for a private commercial development.
Nine states approved eminent-domain measures barring the government from taking private property for a private use. Arizona's winning measure went a step further, requiring state and local authorities to compensate property owners if land-use regulations lowered the value of their property: Idaho rejected a similar measure.
South Dakota voters defeated a measure that would have made their state the first to strip immunity from judges, exposing them to the possibility of lawsuits. In Maine, Nebraska and Oregon, voters defeated measures that would cap increases in state spending.
Pennsylvania voters gave the state the go-ahead to borrow $20 million so that nearly 33,000 veterans in the state who participated in the Persian Gulf War could collect one-time payments up to $525.
Gay Couples Demand Marriage
Lawyers for eight same-sex couples seeking the right to marry will file their brief in the state Supreme Court today, setting the stage for an epochal legal battle on whether Connecticut permits gay marriage.
Since the couples launched their lawsuit in August 2004, the state has passed a law permitting same-sex couples to form civil unions, which bestow virtually the same legal rights that come with marriage.
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The couples not only say civil unions are not enough, but also use the General Assembly's adoption of civil unions as fodder in their constitutional challenge.
The essence of the appeal is encompassed by a rhetorical question in the brief, a draft of which The Courant obtained Tuesday:
"Given the legislature's enactment of the civil union law after this case was filed, and its acknowledgement of both the common humanity of gay people and their rights to equal treatment in their family lives, is it constitutional for the legislature to deny marriage while it also creates, only for gay people, a separate legal regime, with a different name, and deems them eligible for all state-based rights available to married spouses?"
The couples - who are from eight different communities and range in age from their 30s to their 60s - claim that the state's refusal to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples violates state constitutional guarantees of equal protection under the law and freedom of association.
Because the appeal is rooted in provisions of the state constitution, rather than the U.S. Constitution, the Connecticut Supreme Court's ruling is likely to be the final word on the legal front. But the decision will not put the political issue to rest.
The Massachusetts Supreme Court in 2003 ruled that that state's constitution guarantees same-sex couples the right to marry. In response, more than 170,000 citizens petitioned for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Massachusetts legislators on Nov. 9 recessed without voting on whether to put the measure on the 2008 ballot.
Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, representing the state Department of Public Health, has at least a month to respond to the Supreme Court brief filed on behalf of the eight couples. The case is not expected to be argued until next spring.
Attorney Bennett Klein of Boston-based GLAD - Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders - represents the Connecticut couples. He said Tuesday that civil unions and marriage are not equal under the constitution.
"Marriage is not simply a collection of legal rights," Klein said. "It is something that has a unique meaning in our society. The unique social meaning of marriage gives it a very profound personal value for couples that civil unions can never provide."
The brief details the "harsh, systematic discrimination" against gay people over the past century, including job discrimination and laws that, until 1961, in every state banned sexual relationships between same-sex couples. Connecticut continued to do so until 1969.
It also traces Connecticut's recent political evolution toward equal protection of gay people, from the 1991 passage of an act barring discrimination based on sexual orientation and acts in 2000 to criminalize acts of bias and bigotry and smooth the adoption process for same-sex parents.
In 2005, the legislature's judiciary committee replaced an act that would have guaranteed marriage equality with one permitting civil unions instead.
The same-sex couples contend that the legislature "blinked" when it approved civil unions instead of marriage equality.
"Rather than completely embrace that lesbian and gay citizens are part of a community of equals, it marked those families as different from all others," Klein wrote. "And it politically compromised on the principles it came so close to embracing fully for reasons that are not even valid - personal beliefs, fear of constituent reaction and the bare desire to separate."
Klein said opening marriage to same-sex couples does not intrude on religious freedom.
"Marriage is a government-created institution," Klein said Tuesday. "It's a state institution that is wholly separate from the rights of religious denominations to choose whom they will marry."
In March of this year, Superior Court Judge Patty Jenkins Pittman summarily dismissed the couples' lawsuit, saying passage of the civil union law gave them the equality they sought. She did not perform a constitutional analysis of their claims, though, giving the Supreme Court a clean slate on which to undertake its own analysis.
In the Nov. 7 election, seven states approved bans on gay marriage, bringing the number of states with such bans to 27.
The couples' brief in the Connecticut case concludes by hailing the tradition of the state's highest court of not abdicating its obligation to do justice, even in the face of resistance to change. It cites the 1882 ruling that made Connecticut the first state to end the ban on women becoming lawyers.
"Today, this court should rule that the Connecticut Constitution cannot tolerate the arbitrary separation of lesbian and gay citizens from other citizens," Klein wrote.
Since the couples launched their lawsuit in August 2004, the state has passed a law permitting same-sex couples to form civil unions, which bestow virtually the same legal rights that come with marriage.
ADVERTISEMENT
SPONSORED LINKS
The couples not only say civil unions are not enough, but also use the General Assembly's adoption of civil unions as fodder in their constitutional challenge.
The essence of the appeal is encompassed by a rhetorical question in the brief, a draft of which The Courant obtained Tuesday:
"Given the legislature's enactment of the civil union law after this case was filed, and its acknowledgement of both the common humanity of gay people and their rights to equal treatment in their family lives, is it constitutional for the legislature to deny marriage while it also creates, only for gay people, a separate legal regime, with a different name, and deems them eligible for all state-based rights available to married spouses?"
The couples - who are from eight different communities and range in age from their 30s to their 60s - claim that the state's refusal to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples violates state constitutional guarantees of equal protection under the law and freedom of association.
Because the appeal is rooted in provisions of the state constitution, rather than the U.S. Constitution, the Connecticut Supreme Court's ruling is likely to be the final word on the legal front. But the decision will not put the political issue to rest.
The Massachusetts Supreme Court in 2003 ruled that that state's constitution guarantees same-sex couples the right to marry. In response, more than 170,000 citizens petitioned for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Massachusetts legislators on Nov. 9 recessed without voting on whether to put the measure on the 2008 ballot.
Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, representing the state Department of Public Health, has at least a month to respond to the Supreme Court brief filed on behalf of the eight couples. The case is not expected to be argued until next spring.
Attorney Bennett Klein of Boston-based GLAD - Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders - represents the Connecticut couples. He said Tuesday that civil unions and marriage are not equal under the constitution.
"Marriage is not simply a collection of legal rights," Klein said. "It is something that has a unique meaning in our society. The unique social meaning of marriage gives it a very profound personal value for couples that civil unions can never provide."
The brief details the "harsh, systematic discrimination" against gay people over the past century, including job discrimination and laws that, until 1961, in every state banned sexual relationships between same-sex couples. Connecticut continued to do so until 1969.
It also traces Connecticut's recent political evolution toward equal protection of gay people, from the 1991 passage of an act barring discrimination based on sexual orientation and acts in 2000 to criminalize acts of bias and bigotry and smooth the adoption process for same-sex parents.
In 2005, the legislature's judiciary committee replaced an act that would have guaranteed marriage equality with one permitting civil unions instead.
The same-sex couples contend that the legislature "blinked" when it approved civil unions instead of marriage equality.
"Rather than completely embrace that lesbian and gay citizens are part of a community of equals, it marked those families as different from all others," Klein wrote. "And it politically compromised on the principles it came so close to embracing fully for reasons that are not even valid - personal beliefs, fear of constituent reaction and the bare desire to separate."
Klein said opening marriage to same-sex couples does not intrude on religious freedom.
"Marriage is a government-created institution," Klein said Tuesday. "It's a state institution that is wholly separate from the rights of religious denominations to choose whom they will marry."
In March of this year, Superior Court Judge Patty Jenkins Pittman summarily dismissed the couples' lawsuit, saying passage of the civil union law gave them the equality they sought. She did not perform a constitutional analysis of their claims, though, giving the Supreme Court a clean slate on which to undertake its own analysis.
In the Nov. 7 election, seven states approved bans on gay marriage, bringing the number of states with such bans to 27.
The couples' brief in the Connecticut case concludes by hailing the tradition of the state's highest court of not abdicating its obligation to do justice, even in the face of resistance to change. It cites the 1882 ruling that made Connecticut the first state to end the ban on women becoming lawyers.
"Today, this court should rule that the Connecticut Constitution cannot tolerate the arbitrary separation of lesbian and gay citizens from other citizens," Klein wrote.
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Gay Marriage Galvanizes Canada’s Right
It was a lonely time here in the capital for the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada in the early days of the gay marriage debate in 2003.
Of the scattered conservative Christian groups opposed to extending marriage rights to same-sex couples, it was the only one with a full-time office in Ottawa to lobby politicians. “We were the only ones here,” said Janet Epp Buckingham, who was the group’s public policy director then.
But that was before the legislation passed in 2005 allowing gay marriage in Canada. And before the election early this year of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a Conservative and an evangelical Christian who frequently caps his speeches with “God bless Canada.”
Today across the country, the gay marriage issue and Mr. Harper’s election have galvanized conservative Christian groups to enter politics like never before.
Before now, the Christian right was not a political force in this mostly secular, liberal country. But it is coalescing with new clout and credibility, similar to the evangelical Christian movement in the United States in the 1980s, though not nearly on the same scale.
Today, half a dozen organizations like the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada work full time in Ottawa, four of which opened offices in the past year, all seeking to reverse the law allowing gay marriage.
They represent just some of the dozens of well-organized conservative Christian groups around the country and more than a hundred grass-roots campaigns focused on the issue. In recent months, religious groups have held rallies, signed petitions, drafted resolutions and stepped up their efforts to lobby politicians to overturn the law.
These Christian conservatives have been instilled with a sense of urgency in the expectation that Mr. Harper will follow through on a campaign promise, as early as the first week of December, to hold a vote in Parliament on whether to revisit the gay marriage debate.
“With the legalization of gay marriage, faith has been violated and we’ve been forced to respond,” said Charles McVety, a leader of several evangelical Christian organizations that oppose gay marriage and president of the Canada Christian College in Toronto.
“Traditionally people of faith in Canada have not been politically active,” he said. “But now we’re finally seeing organizations that are professionalizing what was a very amateur political movement.”
Mr. McVety, who recites from memory the decision of an Ontario judge in 2003 that paved the way for gay marriages, has organized dozens of rallies attracting altogether some 200,000 supporters.
He asked the Rev. Jerry Falwell and other American evangelical leaders for advice on building a religious movement in Canada and traveled Ontario and Quebec in a red-and-white “Defend Marriage” bus.
Though the expected vote in Parliament will not decide whether to rescind the gay marriage legislation, but instead whether members wish to reopen the issue for debate, it remains significant for the Christian right and the government.
For leaders of the Christian right, the vote is a chance to get the marriage issue back on the government’s agenda and to get a better sense of where individual politicians, especially newly elected ones, stand. They have adopted that strategy in part because they say that the vote in Parliament will be difficult to win.
For Mr. Harper and his Conservative Party, the vote is an attempt to appease the religious social conservatives who form the core of the support for his minority government without losing moderate voters who want to avoid the issue.
If Mr. Harper appears to be too aggressive in pushing to revisit gay marriage he also risks losing votes in Quebec, where his pro-Israel stance and an environmental plan that does not meet Canada’s Kyoto Protocol commitments have already hurt his support in a province that is critical to his chances of securing a majority in the next election.
“Harper needs to show he is not the right-wing evangelical’s rump if he wants to grow into a majority government,” said Jonathan Malloy, a political science professor at Carleton University in Ottawa who studies the politics of evangelical Christians in Canada.
Mr. Harper’s government has not introduced an avalanche of socially conservative measures, but has instead shifted subtly to the right, one policy at a time.
Of the scattered conservative Christian groups opposed to extending marriage rights to same-sex couples, it was the only one with a full-time office in Ottawa to lobby politicians. “We were the only ones here,” said Janet Epp Buckingham, who was the group’s public policy director then.
But that was before the legislation passed in 2005 allowing gay marriage in Canada. And before the election early this year of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a Conservative and an evangelical Christian who frequently caps his speeches with “God bless Canada.”
Today across the country, the gay marriage issue and Mr. Harper’s election have galvanized conservative Christian groups to enter politics like never before.
Before now, the Christian right was not a political force in this mostly secular, liberal country. But it is coalescing with new clout and credibility, similar to the evangelical Christian movement in the United States in the 1980s, though not nearly on the same scale.
Today, half a dozen organizations like the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada work full time in Ottawa, four of which opened offices in the past year, all seeking to reverse the law allowing gay marriage.
They represent just some of the dozens of well-organized conservative Christian groups around the country and more than a hundred grass-roots campaigns focused on the issue. In recent months, religious groups have held rallies, signed petitions, drafted resolutions and stepped up their efforts to lobby politicians to overturn the law.
These Christian conservatives have been instilled with a sense of urgency in the expectation that Mr. Harper will follow through on a campaign promise, as early as the first week of December, to hold a vote in Parliament on whether to revisit the gay marriage debate.
“With the legalization of gay marriage, faith has been violated and we’ve been forced to respond,” said Charles McVety, a leader of several evangelical Christian organizations that oppose gay marriage and president of the Canada Christian College in Toronto.
“Traditionally people of faith in Canada have not been politically active,” he said. “But now we’re finally seeing organizations that are professionalizing what was a very amateur political movement.”
Mr. McVety, who recites from memory the decision of an Ontario judge in 2003 that paved the way for gay marriages, has organized dozens of rallies attracting altogether some 200,000 supporters.
He asked the Rev. Jerry Falwell and other American evangelical leaders for advice on building a religious movement in Canada and traveled Ontario and Quebec in a red-and-white “Defend Marriage” bus.
Though the expected vote in Parliament will not decide whether to rescind the gay marriage legislation, but instead whether members wish to reopen the issue for debate, it remains significant for the Christian right and the government.
For leaders of the Christian right, the vote is a chance to get the marriage issue back on the government’s agenda and to get a better sense of where individual politicians, especially newly elected ones, stand. They have adopted that strategy in part because they say that the vote in Parliament will be difficult to win.
For Mr. Harper and his Conservative Party, the vote is an attempt to appease the religious social conservatives who form the core of the support for his minority government without losing moderate voters who want to avoid the issue.
If Mr. Harper appears to be too aggressive in pushing to revisit gay marriage he also risks losing votes in Quebec, where his pro-Israel stance and an environmental plan that does not meet Canada’s Kyoto Protocol commitments have already hurt his support in a province that is critical to his chances of securing a majority in the next election.
“Harper needs to show he is not the right-wing evangelical’s rump if he wants to grow into a majority government,” said Jonathan Malloy, a political science professor at Carleton University in Ottawa who studies the politics of evangelical Christians in Canada.
Mr. Harper’s government has not introduced an avalanche of socially conservative measures, but has instead shifted subtly to the right, one policy at a time.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
South Africa approves gay marriage bill
South Africa became the first country on the continent to legalise same sex marriages as the government vowed to to banish discrimination in its all forms after the downfall of apartheid.
After an often heated debate, 230 lawmakers gave their final approval to the civil union bill while 41 opposed it. There were three abstentions.
"In breaking with our past ... we need to fight and resist all forms of discrimination and prejudice, including homophobia," Home Affairs Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula told MPs in Cape Town.
"When we attained our democracy, we sought to distinguish ourselves from an unjust painful past, by declaring that never again shall it be that any South African will be discriminated against on the basis of colour, creed, culture and sex," she added.
After the end of the apartheid era in 1994, during which black South Africans were denied the vote, a new constitution was drawn up specifically banning discrimination on the grounds of race, gender and sexual orientation.
The government was forced to legislate on same sex marriage after the country's highest court ruled in December that existing laws denied gays and lesbians the same constitutional rights as heterosexual couples.
The bill which was approved on Tuesday is more liberal than an original draft, and provides explicitly for gays and lesbians to marry.
The overwhelming vote was guaranteed by the unanimous support of the ruling ANC but the measure was vehemently denounced by smaller conservative parties.
"The ... (bill) justifies immorality and by inference, calls sexual perversion a legitimate alternative lifestyle that should be openly accepted," African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) leader Kenneth Meshoe said in the pre-vote debate in which he warned of divine wrath.
"God is not mocked," he said. "This parliament ... is about to cross the line of Gods patience with us as a nation."
The main opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) said that it was wrong to have separate laws for gays and lesbians and that all forms of marriage should be regulated in one piece of legislation.
The DA, which allowed its members a free vote, also criticised the ANC for issuing a whip to its members to vote en masse for the legislation.
"As a nation, we have a long way to go to eradicate discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation," said DA lawmaker Sandy Kalyan.
The measure however was welcomed by the gay and lesbian campaigners as an historic step forwards.
The Joint Working Group, a national network of 17 lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender organisations said it "signals a rejection of previous attempts to render lesbian and gay people as second class citizens".
"It demonstrates powerfully the commitment of our lawmakers to ensuring that all human beings are treated with dignity," its spokesman Fikile Vilakazi added in a statement.
The bill will now be sent to the National Council of Provinces for concurrence, largely a formality, before being rubberstamped by President Thabo Mbeki.
The Constitutional Court judgment requires the law to come into force by December 1.
Gays and lesbians in Africa are routinely subjected to discrimination and homosexuality is illegal in a number of countries.
Robert Mugabe, president of neigbhouring Zimbabwe, sparked outrage when he described gays as "worse than pigs and dogs" several years ago.
After an often heated debate, 230 lawmakers gave their final approval to the civil union bill while 41 opposed it. There were three abstentions.
"In breaking with our past ... we need to fight and resist all forms of discrimination and prejudice, including homophobia," Home Affairs Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula told MPs in Cape Town.
"When we attained our democracy, we sought to distinguish ourselves from an unjust painful past, by declaring that never again shall it be that any South African will be discriminated against on the basis of colour, creed, culture and sex," she added.
After the end of the apartheid era in 1994, during which black South Africans were denied the vote, a new constitution was drawn up specifically banning discrimination on the grounds of race, gender and sexual orientation.
The government was forced to legislate on same sex marriage after the country's highest court ruled in December that existing laws denied gays and lesbians the same constitutional rights as heterosexual couples.
The bill which was approved on Tuesday is more liberal than an original draft, and provides explicitly for gays and lesbians to marry.
The overwhelming vote was guaranteed by the unanimous support of the ruling ANC but the measure was vehemently denounced by smaller conservative parties.
"The ... (bill) justifies immorality and by inference, calls sexual perversion a legitimate alternative lifestyle that should be openly accepted," African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) leader Kenneth Meshoe said in the pre-vote debate in which he warned of divine wrath.
"God is not mocked," he said. "This parliament ... is about to cross the line of Gods patience with us as a nation."
The main opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) said that it was wrong to have separate laws for gays and lesbians and that all forms of marriage should be regulated in one piece of legislation.
The DA, which allowed its members a free vote, also criticised the ANC for issuing a whip to its members to vote en masse for the legislation.
"As a nation, we have a long way to go to eradicate discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation," said DA lawmaker Sandy Kalyan.
The measure however was welcomed by the gay and lesbian campaigners as an historic step forwards.
The Joint Working Group, a national network of 17 lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender organisations said it "signals a rejection of previous attempts to render lesbian and gay people as second class citizens".
"It demonstrates powerfully the commitment of our lawmakers to ensuring that all human beings are treated with dignity," its spokesman Fikile Vilakazi added in a statement.
The bill will now be sent to the National Council of Provinces for concurrence, largely a formality, before being rubberstamped by President Thabo Mbeki.
The Constitutional Court judgment requires the law to come into force by December 1.
Gays and lesbians in Africa are routinely subjected to discrimination and homosexuality is illegal in a number of countries.
Robert Mugabe, president of neigbhouring Zimbabwe, sparked outrage when he described gays as "worse than pigs and dogs" several years ago.
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